


Homecoming

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Book 3: Voyager, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 13:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10618038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: Seven years after he gives himself over to the British, a changed Jamie Fraser returns to Lallybroch.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the most recent promotional material by Starz regarding Outlander Season 3 and that particular photo of Jamie, I felt compelled to write this.

Homecoming

He cleared the last high pass as the sun was reaching its zenith on the seventh day, guiding the horse, unfamiliar with the rocks and crags and hidden pot holes of the Highlands, slowly towards the crest of the hill.

 

Rain hung in the air; thick and sweet and his lungs swell at the taste of it, feeling as if they have not drawn an easy breath in years.

 

_Years._

_Had it really been seven years?_

_Seven years since that fateful night up in the cave, when Mary McNab had came and held him. Held him and pressed him, squeezing out his loneliness, the aching cut of grief and sorrow that could never truly heal._

_Seven years since and seven years before that watching a grey sky splattered with pink unlock the morning in increments from the mouth of the cave, standing looking down over the house, a jagged shadow in granite looming huge in the morning light._

_‘My father built this place, ye ken? His blood and sweat are in this stone,’ words spoken with such hope, such pride as he had stood in the Laird’s room with Claire on that first evening, holding her and never dreaming that he would have to let her go._

‘Lord that she may be safe’, the prayer comes softly to his lips, the memory of standing with her after the long, hard ride away from the horrors of Cranesmuir a sudden ache to his chest.

 

_Her and the child._

_How old would that child be now?_

The child conceived amongst the needless, senseless ravages of a cause lost before it had even begun, a child conceived within the fire tinged smoke of Preston and Falkirk, a child discovered too late amid the high, salty sweetness of blood and death.

_Fourteen now,_ he thinks, absently, for William, the son that he could never acknowledge in the soft shadows of the Helwater stables was rising seven.

_Fourteen and bonny and canty and braw and safe. Safe, for that was all that truly mattered._

‘God be with ye, _mo nighean don_ ,’ he says aloud, the words catching on a gust of wind like the seeds of dandelion, billowing in a soft white cloud into nothingness.

 

Beneath him the horse shifts warily, tossing its head against the confines of the bridle. He does not adjust his grip, but the words come easy enough, soft Gaelic memories that he has whispered in his dreams, murmured over and over to the horses at Helwater as he combed their tails, pulling a curry comb back against a thick, shining back.

 

They reach the sheep track snaking down to the house without incident.

 

His throat is blocked, tight and choking under the thick weight of the new linen stock that had lain atop the pile of clean, well-made clothes that he had found lying in a pile on his cot in the stable loft. The coat and waistcoat are good, plain walked wool, slightly battered and stained from the week’s ride north. Overhead, the wind was changing, bringing with it welcomed cries of Spring, the air fresher, lighter than it had been back in the Lakes.

 

Sweat pools at the back of his hands, the two stiff fingers of his right hand aching from the hard leather of the reins.

 

_What would he say to them?_

_What could he say to them?_

The horse shifts impatiently under him, throwing its’ head and he clucks back at it, loosening the reins a fraction to let the horse pick its’ way down the slope and the unknown. The wide nostrils flare at the unfamiliar smells as they draw closer, picking down the hill, unknown horse and sheep and cye and a small smile twitches at his lips.

 

A stranger amongst his own.

 

‘I ken that fine, aye?’

 

*

It was late afternoon, the shadows from the dovecote told that much.

 

The fading light drew long shadows across his path as he dismounts, slowly rubbing aching legs and buttocks and back.

 

 And breathes.

 

Gulps in air like a man half drowned, letting the smells and sounds of the kailyard envelop him, so similar and yet so different to the ones that he had grown accustomed to in the clean, drystone walls at Helwater. The stink of peat and dog and dung, the soft tang of the heather from the moor, the faint notes of honey and roses from the briar, good Lallybroch earth…

 

Shards of salt prick at the corner of his eyelids and he swipes them roughly away with the back of his hand.

 

Seven years.

 

_A Dhia!_

 

So much had changed, he had changed, the reflection flickering in and out of the murky, peat filled stream that he had gazed upon whilst taking a razor to his chin that morning was not the one that had left this place.

 

Just then he hears a scrabbling scuffle from the front door and steps back, hands firmly by his sides, feeling servant and guest all at once. His heart is lodged somewhere in his throat, beating a thick rhythm like the bodhran that had beat the final, fatal Highland march onto Culloden moor and the black, gaping mouths of the British canon.

 

Jenny stands there, mouth open; a gaggle of children; some he recognises, others he doesn’t, peeking round her skirts. He tries to find Fergus amid the melee, find a recognisable face, but the dark eyes and beaked nose under a wild crop of curls is nowhere to be found.

 

A slow breath, dark blue eyes blinking, travelling up into his face, taking in the shadows, the smudges, the wear of a week’s riding from the dales, over Cotter’s Dyke; where he had watched thick, dark clouds heavy with rain billow and break over his homeland.

 

He swallows thickly; phlegm caught in his throat, careful to keep his face expressionless. It was a habit that had been well practiced at Helwater and he did not think it wise to let the mask slip just yet.

 

Behind his sister’s skirts, he can make out the rise of the hallway, the slashed Oak sword chest, a faded rag rug thrown over the stone floor.

 

Jenny blinks, a girl with stubby, mouse coloured plaits, Ian's eyes and a smattering of dark freckles caressing a snub nose above a cleft chin, tugging at her skirts. It is Janet, one of the twins who had barely been out of swaddling blankets when he left.

 

‘Ma?’ The question is a piercing whisper, but Jenny ignores it.

 

Her mouth is twitching, shivers suddenly wracking her thin body and he tries to step forward, wanting to hold her, to know that she is real.

 

‘Jen…   _a phiuthar…_  It’s me…’

 

She nods distractedly, deep-blue cat eyes shining, face crumbling whether from delight or emotion, he isn’t sure.

 

With painful care, she disentangles herself from the mass of children and comes towards him. Unbidden, unwanted tears welling in his eyes at the sight of her, so small, smaller than he remembers her ever being, and yet so fierce, the very fabric of Lallybroch itself.

 

‘Jamie?’ Her face is a question, her hands reaching to cup his face as he finds her wrist, pressing rough, cold lips against the blue, snake vein visible under butterfly thin skin.

 

He nods, blinking away the thick wetness damming behind his eyes; unable to take his eyes from her.

 

‘You’re home’, she says at last, an echo of what he vaguely remembers her saying amid the heat of pain and fever and loss when he had been brought back in the wagon from Culloden.

 

‘You’re home’, she repeats again, as if not quite believing it and then the small, taut shoulders suddenly slump as he pulls her thin, fragile body to his chest; wanting nothing more than to hold her and never, ever let her go.

 

‘Aye, mo leannan,’ he whispers, remembering how he had held her in the burial ground before their fathers’ grave; reaching a hand to card itself through her hair, the ebony streaked with liberal strands of grey.

 

‘I’m here mo chiride. I’m here.’

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain! 
> 
> Much love and enjoy
> 
> Song suggestions: St Crispin's Day Speech Music and Non nobis Dominae from Henry V (1989) composed by Patrick Doyle


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